


And Straight On Till Morning

by Anonymous



Category: Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: The Animated Series
Genre: Canon Compliant, Discovery Season 2, Episode: s01e02 Yesteryear, Episode: s02e10 The Red Angel, Gen, Stable Time Loop, Temporal Paradox, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:20:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27457126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “Consider however, that we are creating instead a sequence of events Control cannot anticipate. Travellers meeting at crossroads in time, futures harkening back to their pasts. Changes upon changes. Paradox upon paradox.”(HowdidGabrielle Burnham know to show Spock the seven lights if Michael had been the one to create them? Well, perhaps she had a little help herself…)
Relationships: Gabrielle Burnham & Spock
Kudos: 7
Collections: Anonymous





	And Straight On Till Morning

After so many times, Gabrielle knows the best places to spy onto the S’chn T’gai household without being seen. She rolls her shoulders, trying to reorient herself. She has had a row of humiliating defeats against Control, the AI becoming faster and more ruthless with every attempt, and her flagging strength is starting to fail her.

That is why she has elected to come here, the closest she has been able to reach the time she left (but still too late, too far to stop what had started it all). It is a peaceful time, but when she arrives Michael’s eyes are red, like she has been crying. It makes her sigh and do her best to swallow her bitterness, that even now the universe can’t just give her this.

She checks the exact date, and finally places it: this must be just after Spock’s kahs-wan. That means Ee-Chaya has died. While she has been puzzling this, Michael has reached her stepbrother’s side —all of the obstacles in the way of their relationship still waiting in their future— and sits down to comfort him. Michael leans against his shoulder, just enough that Sarek won’t reprimand them for the show of emotion if he catches it and the young boy’s shoulders slump, though that is the only sign that he is mourning the sehlat’s passing.

They look so defeated and so young, they have so many trials ahead of them, that for a moment Gabrielle considers jumping to change this outcome; but it is really too frivolous an use of the suit to bother with it, when their problems will be so much bigger in the future.

“I had wondered if I would meet you here, Dr. Burnham.”

Startled out of her reverie, Gabrielle whirls around and lifts her arms, stepping away from the Vulcan that has approached her without making a sound. Before she can get ready to jump away however, something, an instinct she has acquired after so many centuries of fighting against Control, assures her that the man by her side is not one of its puppets.

In fact…

“Spock?” She asks in absolute shock, letting her arms fall limply by her side.

Because it is him, decades older than he should be, but him nonetheless; she has no doubt about it. She has seen so many moments of his life, when the galaxy lasts long enough for him to grow up in it: lifetimes in which he and her sweet Michael will fight each other bitterly. Lifetimes in which they will remain together until the very end. Lifetimes in which one hurts the other and they lose so many precious years they could have had.

Irrationally the small, desperate part of her that still longs for those days before the Red Angel, that was just about to bid another silent, unheard goodbye to her daughter, that part wants to hug him in her place and apologize for the times (so many, too many times) where she has used him in the past. Spock, the only one in this vast universe who has been able reach back to her, however briefly; but never in this manner.

“How are you here?” She asks almost breathlessly, as her mind catches up with all the possibilities, all the implications of his presence.

“I have learnt, doctor, that time is much more fluid that I believed it to be in my youth. As you may have surmised, there are other methods to briefly step out of our linear progression.”

“But you are here,” Gabrielle says, “you are here, and you are alive. In your future… is it over?”

“Yes,” then, anticipating her next question, he quickly says, “I cannot tell you all.”

“I understand,” she says, and she means it. Time has inertia and entropy just as space has. It has a sort of mood. If angered, Time always has ensured that her steps always end crisscrossing her previously trodden path and never further. Changing what is to come from the present is a delicate process, the flow has to be carefully nudged so it won’t swallow you whole.

“What can you tell me?” She asks.

“During the last months of the Federation-Klingon war that started at the Binary Stars, I received a series of messages by the Red Angel,” he says and she gasps. He nods gravelly and continues, “They conveyed an event that had yet to occur in the timeline. That event will bring the Discovery and the Enterprise together, and give them the tools they need to drive the Sphere’s data permanently out of Control’s reach.”

She doesn’t know what to say, so she doesn’t say anything. He gives a small, tired sigh, like he has committed to saying all that he believes that he can safely say. “In the resulting chain of events, Michael will create her own Red Angel suit and create a stable time loop that will result on Control being neutralized.”

There’s tension on the way he holds himself, but his expression remains calm as he concludes, “During the final battle against Control, Michael believed that the time loop closed behind her. For quite some time, I thought the same. That, however, still left one problem unsolved. That piece of information I had received, the one that allowed us to prevail, was one that _you_ had given me and yet one that you had had no way of knowing, and that in fact, you claimed not to know.”

“One you can give me now? 

“Indeed. Though you would have to feign ignorance of it, of course, to preserve this loop.”

“It seems so… convoluted,” she says, with a touch of apprehension. Spock lifts an eyebrow, regarding her clinically, but his voice is gentle when he explains himself, like he's afraid to hurt her.

“Doctor… one person can only introduce a set number of variables into a situation, especially if they focus exclusively towards one goal. It is not enough. Consider however, that we are creating instead a sequence of events Control cannot anticipate. Travellers meeting at crossroads in time, futures harkening back to their pasts. Changes upon changes. Paradox upon paradox.”

“We bring chaos into the equation, the only thing that Control can’t understand,” she whispers with a sudden insight, “between all three of us we create a Gordian knot that it won’t know how to untangle.”

“Precisely.”

“What is it I need to know, then?”

Instead of answering, Spock asks, “may I ask you one question first, Doctor?”

“Of course.”

“What would have been your next course of action, had we not met here at this moment?”

She thinks about it, frowning. So many plans, so many lost chances, and she is running out of ideas… but looking at him, she gets a burst of inspiration.

“To be honest with you, I think I might need some help myself. I guess my next plan would be to send the Sphere onto Discovery’s path, though I don’t know how.”

“Then, I believe I do have an answer for you.”

Spock lifts a hand in a clear invitation; Gabrielle has seen this enough times to know how the mind meld will work, and she takes a step forward. Before they can connect, however, a new thought makes her hesitate.

“Doctor?”

“The only one I will be able to give this information to when I jump, will be you.”

“That is correct.”

“What will happen to you after we mind-meld in the past?”

His mouth curls just slightly, something in his expression lands between bemused and sardonic, and he states simply, “I shall survive it.”

“Unharmed?”

“… In time.”

Her heart thuds loudly in her chest. There is pain lurking behind his words; not a lie, she thinks, but close.

“Do not trouble yourself on my account, Doctor. I endured it; I shall endure, or I would not be standing here in front of you. Everything else is a small price to pay for what is at stake.”

“No.” She grits her teeth, unused to speaking to someone other than a camera, someone who can still judge her for her actions, but finally finding the strength to find the words she needs.

“Spock, I can’t tell you that I’ve cared for you in the past, because it would be a lie. I could excuse myself. My mission has gone on for so long, I feel like I will never again be able to care for anyone as I should; not even for my daughter, some days. Still I have felt… proud. Proud of you. Proud that Michael found you and your family. That you supported her when she needed it.”

“For a long time, I did not.”

“Time is fluid,” she repeats back at him, and the ghost of a smile appears and vanishes before it takes form. “You have been there for my Michael, more than you will ever know. Thank you.”

She takes a step forward, but on this occasion, it is he who lowers his hand in doubt.

“Doctor Burnham. This path will not be kind to you either.”

Gabrielle goes to rebuke him, to assure him that all she wants is to get somewhere and is too tired to care about the rest. Then she reconsiders and instead says with a rueful smile, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

He releases a breath that sounds like it is hiding amusement. He dutifully answers, nonetheless, “that depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”

He arranges his fingers on the psi points of her face, a feather-like touch that she can barely feel against her skin.

The images come. The familiar, horrible death of everyone, the planets and cities destroyed taking away even the memory of what had been. Before she can lose herself in the sight, they are moving again, and she sees the red signals, shining vibrantly against the starred sky. Her mind gains the knowledge of their position and their radiance, if not their exact meaning.

There’s a pause, a moment of silence like a recorder switching tracks, and she knows the message she must carry has now ended. Just as she feels their minds start to disconnect, she sees her daughter, standing tall and proud in her own Red Angel suit and the pathway to the future unfurling above her.

In a moment that lasts a heartbeat and half an eternity, she sees her arguing, laughing, commanding. Scenes that she has witnessed over and over, but this time they look brighter, more real than they ever have.

The moment passes as well and they separate. Spock takes a step back.

Gabrielle feels the growing pull to Terralysium building in her gut with every second she tries to resist its power. She deploys her helmet and looks at this unexpected companion the universe has granted her, after taking everything else away. Something flits and grows in her chest, and it takes her a moment to realize that the foreign feeling is hope.

Hope for the future, hope for her daughter, hope for this vast, beautiful cosmos that humanity will never fully understand.

Her vision fills with red as the power builds up around the suit, and she can feel the powerful vibration of her wing-like stabilizers. Past the blinding light she can still see his silhouette, with a hand lifted in the traditional ta’al as he bids her farewell.

Perhaps, even, for the last time.

She falls up and into the wormhole with a laugh, replaying in her mind’s eye the seven bursts of light that will finally, finally show them the path to reach the other side of the future.


End file.
